Cheating case: Sadhu Yadav surrenders

Faced with the prospect of attachment of his property, Rashtriya Janata Dal member of Parliament Anirudh Prasad alias Sadhu Yadav on Monday surrendered in a case of forgery and cheating before a special vigilance court, which remanded him to judicial custody till December 12, but granted the prosecution's plea for two days' remand for interrogation.

The high-profile Lok Sabha member from Gopalganj, brother-in-law of Railway Minister and RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, surrendered before the in-charge Vigilance Judge Munilal Paswan in the case, an off-shoot of the multi-crore flood relief scam, at around 11 am.

His counsel Janardan Rai later moved a petition for bail, which was posted for hearing for December 6.

Yadav's surrender follows the rejection of his anticipatory bail application by the Supreme Court on December 1 and by the vigilance court's November 25 order for attachment of his property.

Vigilance counsel Bhola Prasad Sharma moved a petition seeking five days' remand of the MP, who had been evading arrest since September 11 in the case, to enable the investigating agency to interrogate Sadhu.

The plea for vigilance remand for Sadhu was strongly opposed by his counsel, but the court finally granted the agency two days to interrogate him in custody.

Additional Director General (Vigilance) Neelmani told PTI that the bureau was likely to take Sadhu on remand on Tuesday. Sadhu would, in the meantime, be taken to Beur jail.

The vigilance bureau had on September 5 registered a case under various sections of Indian Penal Code relating to forgery and cheating against Sadhu, charging that the MP had falsified documents to prove that Rs 6 lakh in his Patna Secretariat branch bank account had come from the sale of a vehicle, which in fact, was not his.

Sadhu had claimed that the money had come from the sale of an Opel Astra car to one Bhagwan Lal Jha, father of supplier of relief material and alleged kingpin of the flood relief scam Santosh Jha.

Contesting Sadhu's claim, the vigilance bureau had said the original owner of the vehicle one Sumit Ranjan Jena of Delhi had on May 18, 2006, given a statement to the metropolitan magistrate at Patiala house court that his vehicle was purchased on loan from ICICI bank and since he had not paid back the amount, the car was still hypothecated.

"As such, Jena could not have sold the vehicle to Sadhu Yadav," the First Information Report said adding, Jena had claimed that he had given the car to Sadhu for a few days for use, but he "virtually usurped" it.

The then district transport officer of Patna Brij Raj Rai who is also an accused in the case and arrested, has been charged with antedating falsified documents on June 18, 2006, to show the sale by Sadhu to Jha on June 18, 2004.

The flood relief scam case relates to the swindling of over Rs 17 crore meant for providing succour to the flood victims of north Bihar districts in 2004.

Former Patna district magistrate Gautam Goswami, who was the nodal officer for relief efforts, is also an accused in the case and was recently released on bail.